


Side 3 Track 4

by Xenamorph



Series: Ghost Quartet [2]
Category: Wizard101 (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26473033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xenamorph/pseuds/Xenamorph
Summary: Jordan has a nightmare.
Series: Ghost Quartet [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1924540





	Side 3 Track 4

Nightmares mean nothing. That's what Jordan's mother always told her whenever she woke her mother up sobbing from whatever night terror that had grappled her awake. That's not what Edna told her, when she ran to the Raven's home with mud covered feet and messy hair and shaking hands.

"The dead can sing to us, we just have to listen," Her voice was always strangely musical, even if she was speaking normally, and she tucked Jordan up on the sofa. If her mother asked (her mother never asked), Edna had the plan to tell her that Jordan was such a studious and wonderful daughter that she got a jump on her learning for the day. But no questions were ever asked, and Jordan was allowed to have one night to cry to herself.

"I don't want to hear what's happening- I don't want to hear the dead!" She sniffed and wiped at her eyes, knowing that she sounded weak and pathetic and not like a Crisp and she knew her mother would be so disappointed in her if she could see her. "There's no noise in my house! It's all silent and strange and I hate it!" She was weak for a Crisp and she was weak for a Spiritualist. Spirit magic users (Guiders, Spiritualists, untranslatable words that her tongue always tripped over itself trying to pronounce) weren't supposed to be so scared about songs and the dead. That's what she was practicing to harness, to guide and sing on and carry on the melodies that Edna taught her, but she didn't want to. She didn't want to think about what was under her room.

The nightmare was terrifying, and Edna always told her to talk about it so she did. It was her room (most nightmares were of her room and she didn't want to consider what that meant for her), and there was something underneath her. Not far underneath her, not in the earth, but in her house beneath her. Just one floor below her, just a few planks of wood underneath her. Scratching at the floorboards and hissing in something that almost sounded like whispers but not quite. Too far gone, too unhinged and angry and jealous. Jordan knew that whatever was making those noises was jealous of her and it wanted to make sure she knew that. Footsteps beneath her (the room underneath her was blocked off and she couldn't go in there her mother would be furious that room was always kept locked), stomping and angry and wrathful. Wraithful? It didn't matter, they were dead (she could feel that much) and they were coming

She woke up freezing, frost dancing across her shoulders and her hands and she was so very cold.

Edna knew more than she let on, but all adults did. Jordan had learned that young and knew it well, so she didn't ask. She didn't want to know what Edna knew about the dead and the songs and her house and where she fell into this equation, so she didn't ask. That was another thing that Jordan knew well, when to keep her mouth shut and when to not ask questions that she wouldn't want the answer to. "Do you want to hear a story?" Edna asked, as a way of changing the topic away from tough questions and scared little girls.

Jordan nodded her head, she always liked Edna's stories. No matter how scary, or sing song, or how many of them she suspected were the songs of the dead that she talked about. A flick of Edna's hand got the book floating over to her (she wanted to know that spell, wanted to know how to do that same thing with her own hands without having to worry about knitting together the bones of small animals that were in the soil).

"Now, why don't we catch up with that Subway story you like so much?" Subway wasn't a fun story by any means. It was as dark and terrifying as anything else, and everything was circular and terrifying and interconnected with four other stories as well as one other that was loosely connected solely by having narrators crossing over. But it was something for her to distract herself with. If she was focusing on the timeline and the characters and the reincarnations and who was doing what, then she couldn't think about whispers or the bones underneath her.

"Yes," She had to reply, it was only polite and even if it was four am and no one was looking, she couldn't be anything but polite. She shifted on the couch, making sure that she was properly tucked in (she was, Edna was the best at tucking her in) and there were no gaps in the blankets where any shadows could come through and grab her feet. A childish fear, one that Jordan had grown out of for the most part, but she was still a child and child still have those innate little fears that they carry with them like a well worm blanket until they're ready to put it down.

"Alright then," The raven cracked the old tome open, carefully flipping to the correct page, "Let me read you a story, let me read a romance, I will read, you will listen, and this terrible night will pass." She sang, as she always did. She always sang those words before starting any story or song or anything, Jordan didn't know why but she picked it up.

"Let me read you a story, let me read you a romance, you will read, I will listen and this terrible night will pass," It was raining, in that strange little early morning way that Wysteria always rained, but there was no thunder.

"Book Seven, Chapter Ten: The Tale of Pearl and the Pusher, and the Subway Driver, and the Photograph." Edna began, musical as ever even with the dark subject matter and Jordan found herself already nodding off as bones started to click and drum to echo Edna's words. A light bulb ripped, somewhere in the distance maybe (or maybe it had long ago and Edna had summoned that noise from the past, even noises have ghosts) and Jordan was out like a light.

Long before the chapter is done, as children are wont to do, but Edna never minded. She just made a note of where Jordan first started nodding off and sent the book back to it's place on the shelf. Might as well work on her embroidery, since she's trapped on the couch with Jordan leaning up against her arm.


End file.
